Can you still access the battery compartment without removing the plate? Do you remember what it is and have a link?

ALso, do you use a camera strap? And if so, do you just attach to the strap lugs on the sides? I'm only asking because I have a Joby strap that I really like, but it attaches to the tripod threaded hole in the bottom, so I have to remove the strap and attach arca swiss plate every time I want to use my tripod which is a right royal pain in the ass, so thinking of changing my strap.

In much the same way as you have the three user defined modes (on a K3 anyway), you would have the option to save all your settings in say three users namable slots in the menu, or to revert to default settings. This would make it really easy to share your camera with someone who might have very different requirements, it would also give much more flexibility for pro users who might have different requirements depending on the shoot they were attending. I don't know how the OS of these cameras work, but I would have thought this would be fairly trivial. This could also allow people to "share" settings files, which becomes more relevant as cameras get ever more complicated. (this may of course be possible on some cameras, but I don't think it's possible on the k3). On the K3, it would also increase your user modes to 9, if that's important to you.

@Johnathan - It's the flatness that you describe that has prompted me to put in some time investigating, and wondering why the Pentax BW mode is not slightly better tuned, but I guess it's a straight conversion from colour to BW with no adjustment. I look forward to learning what your preferred settings are.

@Adam - So, you are saying that if I fire up the Pentax software included with the camera (which I admit is still in the box, totally ignored), it should have all the same settings as the camera and be able to exactly reproduce the same JPEG results as in-camera, i.e. it has the same processing 'engine'? If that's the case, that's a great idea, thanks.

Hoping for some other opinions on BW settings - there must be lots of people shooting BW with the K3/ii, surely?

I'm interested specifically in the k3's in-camera JPEG capabilities with regard to black and white images. I know a lot of people would recommend shooting RAW and then post-processing to B&W, but I'd like to fully understand the camera's B&W JPEG performance.

I love black and white images, they really make you focus on the subject. If you find yourself flicking through a stack of old 6x4 prints and there's a B&W image stuck in there, it really stands out and I always pause for a little longer on it. There could be a very deep routed evolutionary reason for our affinity with B&W images - someone once told me that when you are in an accident (or some other fast extreme life threatening situation) you only see in black and white. This is because the brain ditches [costly] colour processing in favour of analysing the scene and preparing the body for appropriate evasive action.

Anyway, having recently acquired a nearly new K3 (which I am totally loving BTW), I thought I would set up one of the user modes to quickly allow me to go into B&W shooting mode. To cut a long story short(ish) I soon came to realise that there are quite a lot of different options on the K3 for tweaking the resultant JPEG image and I'm enjoying discovering what they all do, but I would very much like the advice of experienced K3/ii users in this regard.

Gave up waiting for k3ii "replacement", which will no doubt be announced shortly! Managed to pick up a second hand k3 at a reasonable price even though both the k3 and k3ii seem to be quite rare on the second hand market. Very excited.

Just want to say thanks again for the advice. I've had a look at the KP, but apart from it being a little out of my budget, the reviews that I checked out were not that impressed with it and both suggested the K70 was far better value for money, they also suggested waiting to see what the K3 mark III looks like before making any decisions on the KP. I confirm that I suspect what I'll end up doing is waiting for K3 update and then getting an older version of the K3 either at discount on new price or second hand. Until then K50 is performing great again, so no urgency.

Repair update (for anyone that's interested)... I have successfully managed to repair the aperture motor/actuator issue that was causing the black images (Yay!). I filed down the ends of the D shaped metal core of the electromagnet using wet and dry paper just enough to create a small gap so that it doesn't stick magnetically to the other side - it was a bit of a leap of faith because I couldn't be sure that that's what the problem actually was, but after fitting it all back together it seems (for the moment at least) to be working a treat. A word of caution for anyone taking the casing off - be sure to locate the auto-focus selection switch on the bottom right (as you look at the front) correctly - otherwise you'll have to take it apart again to fix when the focussing doesn't work!

Okay, so having looked at the suggestions, it would seem that the K-3II is the obvious choice, especially from a build quality perspective, but as suggested by The Squirrel Mafia - waiting to see if there is a replacement soon might be an idea partly because I've now got my K50 back working and partly because it should push the older K-3II closer to my budget if there is surplus stock kicking about. That said, I should be able to sell the old k50 for a few quid to help fund the upgrade!

Thanks again (nearly considered selling up and going Nikon/Canon route)

I have a fairly new K50 that has developed the dreaded "black image" disease - aka intermittent aperture actuator failure. I'm going to have a go at fixing it, but I'm pretty disappointed in Pentax, since I had invested in brand (2 other lenses and flash) specifically because of good reputation.

Now, I know things fail so I need to get over it, but what should be my way forward? I want to move on (and up a bit) and was thinking of getting a K3 (seems very well built), but it looks like that model is fairly old and might not be being made anymore? What other model should I consider for mainly hobbyist stills of all kinds? Budget approx £600 (inc preowned)